


you and i

by tamquams



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Blue and Gansey are only mentioned, Canon Compliant, Character Study, M/M, author is projecting her emotions onto fictional characters, author uses the character's names too much, author uses too many commas and semi colons, not betad we die like mne, there is literally no plot or dialogue this is just adam thinking about his relationship, this is named after a one direction song because i forgot to name it until i went to post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22675492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamquams/pseuds/tamquams
Summary: Adam Parrish was decidedlynotwild.Ronan Lynch, however.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 13
Kudos: 114





	you and i

Adam Parrish was decidedly _not_ wild.

Ronan Lynch, however.

Ronan Lynch drove like a bat out of hell. Ronan Lynch jumped off of roofs for fun. Ronan Lynch did air guitar solos to the Murder Squash Song. Ronan Lynch set shit on fire just to watch it burn. Ronan Lynch was made of _wild_ , like it was a tangible thing, like it was sewn into his skin and infused into his blood. Ronan Lynch was an entire pack of wolves in one sharp, solid body.

Adam Parrish was so in love with him.

There was no ‘despite’ in it. He wasn’t in love with Ronan _despite_ the illegal midnight drag racing; he loved the way the smell of smoke and burnt rubber put a shark-like smile on Ronan’s face, loved the bright red glow that illuminated the contours of his cheekbones. He wasn’t in love with Ronan _despite_ the relentless stomping of feet and slamming of doors; he loved the way his brain rewired to associate those loud noises with love and tenderness rather than fear and pain. He wasn’t in love with Ronan _despite_ anything. He was in love with Ronan _because_ of everything.

If his skin and blood were electric and ferocious, however, then Ronan’s heart was velvet: precious and soft to the touch. If the wolves decided to let you pass, you’d find that they guarded something so tender that it ached. Nobody cared like Ronan cared. Nobody loved like Ronan loved. To be cherished by Ronan Lynch was an honor known to few, Adam Parrish most of all.

Being Adam Parrish meant doubting everything. It meant worry, it meant anxiety, it meant fear. Being Adam Parrish meant that he would always want to run. Being Adam Parrish meant that he wasn’t even sure if love existed. 

But Ronan Lynch was an agent of change. He created, he created, he created. Ronan Lynch was capable of impossible things. Ronan Lynch possessed skills unknown to man. Ronan Lynch was magical, miraculous, otherworldly.

Ronan Lynch was the closest thing to God that Adam Parrish could believe in.

To feel Ronan’s fingers gently resting on Adam’s cheeks. To feel Ronan pressing his soft lips to Adam’s knuckles reverently. To feel the intensity of Ronan’s gaze from across the room. To rest his forehead on Ronan’s sturdy shoulder when exhaustion and grief overwhelmed him. To wake up from nightmares wrapped tightly in Ronan’s arms.

Adam Parrish now knew that love existed. He had held it in his hands. He had seen it with his eyes. He had received it, had given it, had basked in it like a cat on a sunny patch of carpet. Love was real. Love was his.

Love was consuming him.

He had not realized how much he had wanted love until he had it. How much he had needed it. It was a privilege, he had thought. But to say that something is a privilege is to imply that you could live without it.

Adam could not live without Ronan.

This was a dangerous revelation. He may as well have pulled the pin from a grenade and hugged it to his chest. 

Except that Ronan was not a grenade. He was _Ronan_. He was a dreamer, a farmer, a drag-racer, a leather jacket-clad bad boy with a soft spot for the little satyr girl he dreamed up and the field mice at the Barns. He spent Saturday nights in sin and then went to Sunday Mass unrepentant. He dreamed up lotion for Adam’s hands and combat boots you could hike in for Blue Sargent. He drove for hours to attend each and every one of Matthew’s soccer games, he baked a lopsided cake for the women of 300 Fox Way as a thank-you for watching after Opal, and he carefully sewed patches into Adam’s clothes when Adam refused to accept any real gifts. 

He wasn’t a ticking time bomb. He was Ronan Lynch, and he would never, ever, _ever_ hurt Adam Parrish. 

It was beautifully ironic that Ronan Lynch, who had taught Adam and Gansey how to fight, was the gentlest of them all.

He had been in love with Ronan the entire time. How could he not have known? It was painfully obvious in retrospect, and even more obvious was the fact that Ronan had been in love with _him._ Before they found Glendower. Before that night at the Barns. Before Adam’s bargain with Cabeswater, before they even _found_ Cabeswater, fuck, probably before they had even met. The psychics of Fox Way had told him once that everything was happening all at once. It had all already happened; it was all yet to come. He liked this logic, because it made it truthful when he told Ronan that he had loved him forever. And because it was truthful, Ronan could say it back.

Ronan was good at many things, but articulating his feelings was not one of them. He preferred to communicate with physicality, with slammed doors and rolled eyes and nimble fingers. Nine times out of ten, his abrasive reactions would be seen as infuriated or violent by an outsider, but not Adam. Never Adam. He knew what every noise, every movement, every facial expression meant. He could tell the difference between playful and predatory reactions, amused and angered, vulnerable and vicious. He spoke Ronan like Ronan spoke Latin: a little messy, but possessive of it, and more fluently than anyone else that he knew. 

And Adam, well, Adam wasn’t a language, but if he had been, he was one that only Ronan knew. He was long-dead and untranslatable, but coming alive nonetheless under Ronan’s warm and needy hands. A Rosetta’s Stone of hitching breath and flushing skin, a dictionary of teeth against lips and lips against flesh. The world got to see Adam Parrish, boy extraordinaire. Their friends got to see Adam Parrish, witch doctor. But the version of Adam that Ronan saw and touched and loved was both of these things and neither of them at the same time; he was simply Adam Parrish, and for the first time in his life, it felt like enough.

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this, you're more than welcome to follow me on tumblr, message me, request stuff, etc! i'm @wespers :)


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